Pushover (1954)

July 30, 1954, release date

Directed by Richard Quine

Screenplay by Roy Huggins

Based on the novels The Night Watch by Thomas Walsh and Rafferty by Bill S. Ballinger

Music by Arthur Morton

Edited by Jerome Thoms

Cinematography by Lester White

Fred MacMurray as Paul Sheridan

Philip Carey as Rick McAllister

Kim Novak as Lona McLane

Dorothy Malone as Ann Stewart

E. G. Marshall as Lieutenant Carl Eckstrom

Allen Nourse as Paddy Dolan

Phil Chambers as Briggs

Alan Dexter as Fine

Robert Stevenson as Billings

Don C. Harvey as Peters

Paul Richards as Harry Wheeler

Ann Morriss as Ellen Burnett

Distributed by Columbia Pictures

Pushover opens with a bank heist, and the setup of the opening sequence reminds me of the opening sequences in The Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Town. In Pushover, the opening credits appear while one of the robbers sits down inside the bank with his gun ready to guard the bank door. As the employees enter the bank to start their workday, they become hostages. The bank manager and one other employee are forced to open the bank’s vault for two of the thieves. The bank security guard goes for one of the thieves who is holding the remaining employees at gunpoint, and the guard is shot and killed by a thief coming out of the bank vault.

(This blog post about Pushover contains spoilers.)

The plot then switches to a seemingly unrelated plot thread that viewers don’t yet realize is related, which again is very similar to The Friends of Eddie Coyle and The Town. Viewers see a woman, Lona McLane, coming out of a movie theater alone. She walks to her parked car, which won’t start. Paul Sheridan appears to offer assistance. Lona (and viewers) don’t know yet that Paul Sheridan is one of the detectives assigned to stake out Lona on the assumption that her boyfriend, Harry Wheeler, now identified as one of the bank robbers, will be back to see her—and will have the money from the heist with him. Paul falls for Lona, and they plot to keep the money for themselves.

I have a lot of trouble believing there was any chemistry between Paul Sheridan (played by Fred MacMurray) and Lona (Kim Novak). Maybe it’s just me: I can’t imagine that someone like Lona would fall for Fred MacMurray. I can’t get past the actor in this role. Such an obstacle is a bit of a liability in a film that bases the detective’s downfall on the passion between the two leads. It just didn’t work for me, but that may not be true for other viewers. It’s hardly a reason not to recommend the film. I really enjoyed the story. The way that Pushover depicts how one police detective slides into corruption is an interesting take on a familiar noir story.

Another plot point bothered me a bit. Several detectives work shifts in the stakeout of Lona’s apartment. One of the detectives, Rick McAllister, imagines that he is falling in love with one of Lona’s neighbors, a woman he isn’t supposed to be watching—but he is. He does meet this neighbor in the apartment hallway one day, when she is being harassed by a man her roommate knows. The harasser takes her purse and won’t give it back unless she agrees to go out for a drink with him. McAllister hears her protests and intervenes, convincing the man—with an arm twist and a shove—to beat it. The woman, Ann Stewart, introduces herself and admires McAllister’s technique; she wonders aloud if she could learn it herself. McAllister tells her that it would be better to avoid that type in the first place.

McAllister is a detective: He should know that Stewart—that no one—has clairvoyant powers into the depths of other people’s characters. But it’s 1954 and blaming the victim, especially a female victim, may have been even more common in 1954 than it is today. It turns out, however, that McAllister’s own powers of observation fail him: One of the detectives working with him, Paul Sheridan, is scheming to steal the bank money for himself and Lona, the bank robber’s girlfriend. Pushover doesn’t make too much of this as a theme, but I noticed it.

Again, my reservations about Fred MacMurray and about the unaddressed theme described above do not prevent me from recommending the film. As I said, I really enjoyed the story. And the plot twists (Can Lona McLane trust Paul Sheridan? Is Lona the quintessential femme fatale?) held my interest enough that I saw the film twice. But I do wish Paul Sheridan had been played by another actor.

The Town (2010)

September 8, 2010 (Venice Film Festival), and September 17, 2010 (United States), release dates

Directed by Ben Affleck

Screenplay by Peter Craig, Aaron Stockard, Ben Affleck

Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan

Music by Harry Gregson-Williams, David Buckley

Edited by Dylan Tichenor

Cinematography by Robert Elswit

Ben Affleck as Douglas “Doug” MacRay

Rebecca Hall as Claire Keesey

Jon Hamm as FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley

Jeremy Renner as James “Jem” Coughlin

Blake Lively as Krista “Kris” Coughlin

Chris Cooper as Stephen MacRay

Pete Postlethwaite as Fergus “Fergie” Colm

Slaine as Albert “Gloansy” MacGloan

Owen Burke as Desmond “Dez” Elden

Titus Welliver as Officer Dino Ciampa

Dennis McLaughlin as Rusty

Brian Scannell as Henry

Isaac Bordoy as Alex Colazzo

Jack Neary as Arnold Washton

Edward O’Keefe as Morton Previt

Victor Garber as David

Produced by Legendary Pictures, GK Films, Thunder Road Pictures

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures

The Town has it all—and then some—for a neo-noir: honor among thieves, betrayal, murder, bank robberies, armored car heists, loyalty to family and friends, and romance. The Town is based on the 2004 novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. I have read Hogan’s novel (I am already planning to reread it so that I can post about it). I enjoyed the novel even more, but the film is also a great story. A little bit different from the novel, but a great story all the same. The writers did a wonderful job adapting it to the screen.

I have always wondered if Chuck Hogan borrowed from George V. Higgins, who wrote The Friends of Eddie Coyle (it is the basis of the movie by the same name). The similarities between the two films are even more striking, as I mentioned in my blog post dated April 28, 2016. Here are the examples I mentioned in April:

• Use of masks in the heists.

• The robbers don’t want to hurt anyone; they just want the money. In The Town, Jem Coughlin is an exception.

• The bank manager, Mr. Partridge, is blindfolded in the first heist in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, as is Claire Keesey in The Town.

• After the first heist in each movie, the bank manager is left at the beach. In The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mr. Partridge (the bank manager) is told to walk until he finishes counting to 100, and he heads toward the water. In The Town, Claire Keesey (the bank manager) is told to keep walking until she feels the water on her toes (she is barefoot because the robbers took the bank employees’ shoes during the robbery).

In both the novel by Chuck Hogan and in the film, I rooted for Doug and his friends, his partners in crime. In the film, when they pulled the armored car heist in the North End of Boston, I wanted them to escape: I wanted them to make it across the Charlestown Bridge. But I’ll admit, it was mostly because I was rooting for Claire and Doug. If Doug got caught, what would happen to Claire?

When it came to rooting for Doug, the human interest elements helped the most for me. The romance angle was only one part of it. In addition were family complications, emotional debts left unpaid, childhood secrets kept for years. All of this makes for a complicated yet extremely satisfying story. Even though I had read the novel before seeing the film and thought I knew the ending, the film kept me guessing—and changed the ending.

Doug and his friends grew up and still live in Charlestown, Massachusetts: a place where fate plays a dominant role in the lives of the people born there. One of the quotes that opens the film tells viewers, “Bank robbery became like a trade in Charlestown, passed down from father to son.” And almost immediately after, Doug, in voice-over, tells viewers about the next bank robbery he and his friends are about to commit. The bank robbery is also the moment that Doug meets Claire Keesey, although he is already familiar with her work routine as part of his planning for the bank job.

(This blog post about The Town contains spoilers.)

As I recall, the film adheres pretty closely to the book. The film, however, streamlines some details about siblings Krista and Jem Coughlin, and the plot details surrounding FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley are minimized to make him less central to the plot, but the romance between Claire and Doug is left almost intact. I say “almost” because the film’s ending is a complete change compared to the book. I don’t want to say that it’s any less satisfying because I enjoyed the film immensely, but the book stays true to the characters and to the circumstances of their lives.

Part of the tension in the story comes from the relationship between Claire and Doug and all the events Doug sets in motion just by reaching out to her. She may have moved into Charlestown, but she is a newcomer and not one of Doug’s friends—and probably doesn’t want to know them. She represents everything that’s new and upscale, everything that Doug’s friends, especially Jem, resent. They have always lived from hand to mouth in crowded projects. Now people like Claire are moving into renovated homes that Doug and his friends cannot afford (unless they keep robbing banks and never get caught) and being pushed to the fringes of their own neighborhoods. Doug and Claire face social obstacles, to say nothing of the obstacles imposed by his chosen profession of bank robber.

So amid all the gunfire and chase scenes, The Town presents a love story that grows in complexity because of tensions, most of which the two lovers have no control over. The writers of the screenplay may have changed the ending, but this is one film that stands on an almost equal footing with the novel on which it is based. That’s quite an achievement.

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

June 26, 1973, release date

Directed by Peter Yates

Screenplay by Paul Monash

Based on the novel The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins

Music by Dave Grusin

Edited by Patricia Lewis Jaffe

Cinematography by Victor J. Kemper

Robert Mitchum as Eddie “Fingers” Coyle

Helena Caroll as Sheila Coyle

Peter Boyle as Dillon

Richard Jordan as Dave Foley

Steven Keats as Jackie Brown

Alex Rocco as Jimmy Scalise

Joe Santos as Artie Van

Mitchell Ryan as Waters

Distributed by Paramount Pictures

DVD distributed by The Criterion Collection

 The Friends of Eddie Coyle is based on the debut novel of the same name by George V. Higgins, who worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston. The parallels between the plot of this film and some of the stories surrounding Whitey Bulger and his reign over the Boston crime world in the 1970s are chilling. Anyone living in the greater Boston area will likely recognize the parallels from newspaper and television accounts of Bulger’s trial.

I watched The Friends of Eddie Coyle on the DVD distributed by The Criterion Collection. The DVD included the director Peter Yates’s commentary about the film, and he made several points about the film, including the following:

• The entire film was shot on location in the Boston area. None of it was shot on studio sets.

• The Boston crime world reminded Yates of the London crime world because the criminals wouldn’t shoot noncriminals. As he observed it, the Boston criminals were rather civil about it all, a rather jovial friendly lot. (As I observe it, that may have been true of the book and the film, but I think many would disagree with that depiction of the Boston crime world.)

• The use of different types of masks for the different robberies and heists came from Higgins’s book.

I took special notice of these details because of another neo-noir that is a favorite of mine: The Town, which was directed by Ben Affleck and in which he had the leading role. The Town was based on a 2004 book Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan. (I have read Hogan’s book, but I have not read Higgins’s—not yet anyway.) I have always wondered if Chuck Hogan borrowed from George V. Higgins because of the similarities between the two movies. Here are some examples:

• Use of masks in the heists.

• The robbers don’t want to hurt anyone; they just want the money. In The Town, Jem Coughlin is an exception.

• The bank manager, Mr. Partridge, is blindfolded in the first heist in The Friends of Eddie Coyle, as is Claire Keesey, also the bank manager, in The Town.

• After the first heist in each movie, the bank manager is left at the beach. In The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Mr. Partridge (the bank manager) is told to walk until he finishes counting to 100, and he heads toward the water. In The Town, Claire Keesey (the bank manager) is told to keep walking until she feels the water on her toes (she is barefoot because the robbers took the bank employees’ shoes during the heist inside the bank).

(This blog post about The Friends of Eddie Coyle contains spoilers.)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle is a darker film. It has everything that the crime world of 1970s Boston had: betrayal, murder, robberies, gun running, corruption in law enforcement. Eddie Coyle is alone as far as his work as a gun runner is concerned. He’s abandoned by everyone, including the law enforcement officer who offered him a deal for his information. Eddie feels like he’s being abandoned, but the viewer, who has more information than Eddie does, can really feel his increasing isolation and the dangerous position he is in. Eddie may feel abandoned, but he doesn’t realize how dangerous his position has become.

It seems that Eddie Coyle’s fate is determined from the beginning of the film. A crime that he committed in the past (before the film starts) comes back to haunt him again and again. He can’t catch a break from his fellow criminals or from the law enforcement officer to whom he gives his first tip. Everyone seems corrupt in Eddie’s business. But even Eddie is pushed to the limit when it comes to informing on others’ illegal activities. In spite of this, I found myself rooting for him throughout. As his situation becomes more and more dire, I kept rooting for him.

Robert Mitchum, as Eddie Coyle, captures all the nuances of a man who leads a criminal life but who does the best he can to provide for his family. The world-weariness on Mitchum’s face, especially when Eddie Coyle must choose between helping himself and remaining loyal to his friends, gives the film an extra bit of realism that makes Mitchum a joy to watch.

Several intertwining threads to this story make the plot a bit difficult to follow. The film demands that the viewer pay attention; in fact, the viewer (and Eddie Coyle) cannot take anything for granted. The viewer has more information than Eddie does, which makes the sense of impending doom even more poignant. Keeping track of the story’s details is so rewarding, though. And then there’s Mitchum’s wonderful performance.